Good job by Calling for Equality!

The San Diego GLBT community is striking back!

NoOnProp8 was not enough to defeat Proposition 8, which is now enshrined in the California Constitution. An association of California businessmen organized Calling for Equality to provide A MEANINGFUL RESPONSE.

• Professionally drafting an amicus brief in support of marriage equality
  
• Outreach to minority communities that voted 80%+ YES on Prop 8
  
• Outreach to politicians and legislators on all levels
  
• Outreach to other VIPs and people of importance, journalists and editors
  

Calling for Equality staff and volunteers put the cause of marriage equality before everything else as they work in burnout mode for the next four months trying to ensure a just decision by the California Supreme Court this Spring.

For the past few years, I take a shot of the mantle with all of the holiday cards taped to it. It might be kind of lame, but it always makes me happy.

Continuing the theme of geeking around on my vacation, I played around with adding additional RSS feeds for the Erie Gay News site.

I noticed that the Zone Dance Club had an out of date version of the calendar from when text had been copied and pasted a while ago. I did a bit of digging and found a fairly nice free JavaScript to parse an RSS feed. Dummy me realized that I had been putting out RSS feeds for the calendar and articles for a while, so what sense was there to have other folks maintain stuff when I could just send them the code and let it maintain itself? That way, events and news gets out to a wider audience, and no one has to keep checking or copying and pasting. I am working on getting other relevant local sites to use the same code.

I also created RSS feeds for the birthday list, the photo galleries and the new video galleries.

Deb had suggested that we should consider doing more with video at the Erie Gay News site. It also had been kind of annoying to paste in embedded code for the videos in the home grown CMS I wrote.

So, I figured that it would be easier to create a table with the info needed and then just read through that for the related articles, and also use the same table to make the gallery. It took a fair amount of putzing around, but I have it working! A nice bonus was that I realized that I could add some videos that I hadn't thought of before.

I also enhanced the photo gallery page to have thumbnails for the particular gallery, which also meant that it needed to be broken down by year.

Hopefully, it makes the web site a bit more engaging and helps folks find things. The video gallery stuff should make it easier for me to maintain.

On Saturday, after visiting Chris, then the Yule party at John and Paula's and then the Pagan party in Fairview, I stopped by the Zone. (I had spent most of Friday doing geek stuff and being asocial, so I guess I wanted to make up for it.)

I had a fairly good time. Unfortunately, someone at the bar had some kind of medical emergency, and EMT folks arrived in an ambulance. I don't know the guy, but I saw him being wheeled out. Not fun.

On Sunday, I went to a GLBT potluck dinner at the UU. It was okay. I sat with folks from the Erie Sisters and my friends Bruce and Tony.

At one point, someone started clearing the tables, and I figured that it was early clean up. Again, EMT folks arrived on the scene. It turns out that one of the organizers thought he was developing heart palpitations. He was also wheeled out on a bed. I got an email later from the organizers that the tests showed that he was fine.

Hopefully, we are done with "the party is over when the EMT folks arrive" thing.

Saturday was quite the mad social whirl! After visiting with Chris, I went to John and Paula's to celebrate Yule. We had a potluck dinner and a gift exchange.

I must confess that I never know what to get. I browsed at Barnes and Noble and found a divination/pendulum game called The Truth Fairy, which struck me as somewhat funny and vaguely appropriate. I am crappy at wrapping stuff, so I looked for a gift bag. I saw a pink bag with fake fur fringe along the top. I figured that as long as I was going camp, why not go all out?

My friend Peter was working the desk and we chatted on the way out. He said that I had probably managed to find the foofiest item that they had in the entire store.

After John and Paula's, I scooted over to another Pagan party in Fairview, which was fun. I had just missed the gift exchange there. Both parties used the same game. Everyone gets a random number and the first person picks a gift from the pile, and then each succeeding person can either open a new gift, or take a gift from someone who has already opened one, and then the person gets to open a new gift from the pile.

Interestingly, the second party that I went to tends to have a fair amount of gift stealing, but John and Paula's party didn't have any! It is fascinating how the same game can run completely different with a change in people. When I was at Jim and Greg's a while ago, we played the game Psychiatrist with straight folks, the questions that people came up with to ask were very mild when contrasted when it was all gay men playing. (Basically, one person asks a question of the other players. The only rule is that the person asking the question has to figure out what the rules of the game are.)

My friend Chris (that would be him with the long red beard) was visiting family here in Erie. After graduating from Behrend, he has been going to law school in Pittsburgh. He wanted to catch up with friends, and so we all got together at Papa Joe's Pepperoni Cafe on W 8th St. I had a rather full schedule, but I did have a great time!

I went to Mom's for Christmas. My stepdad, brother, his girlfriend, Grandma, her husband Mac and Mom's neighbor Laura were all there. It was fairly relaxed and we had a good time. Mom got out the brown Depression glass set that she got from her Grandma.  The ham and everything was yummy!

Laura helped me pick up Grandma and Mac, since Mac has some mobility issues.

Folding/distribution of the latest issue of Erie Gay News went very well this past Tuesday. I had previously found Earl, the Christmas Squirrel (a Christmas novelty song) for James and got it to him on CD. When we were done with delivering the newsletter, we stopped for a bit to eat, and he gave me a small gift and the card below.

Here's the kicker: he got it at Big Lots, and the text was obscured, so he didn't see the caption on the card. You can't write them any better than that!

I was out at the Zone last night and was chatting with Season and Chris. Somehow, the topic of Flame, the cologne that Burger King introduced recently came up. Chris thought that they used bacon oil in it.

Burgers/food scents are wonderful, but I think most of us don't tend to think of them in terms of cologne/perfume. (Okay, I suppose it might appeal to Hannibal Lecter, but does one really want that???) I thought it might suggest something kind of trashy. Season wondered if it would primarily appeal to Jewish girls who felt guilty. The conversation then devolved into imagining that one would go looking for a hotel room to have a rabbi come and spank you with a pork chop. "Yes, yes! I have so such a trayf little boy!"

Found this at Eden's blog and also ErieBlogs.com, so what the hey. Some silly elf videos with my sister, her husband, my brother, his girlfriend and me.

or maybe Disco? I do have gay points to gather, you know.

I have all of my holiday cards out now, and I included a fluffy newsletter with some photos. If you can stomach it, the PDF is attached.

We finished the newsletter this weekend, and I also had a wonderful time at the Vertigo Dance Party in Butler. I posted photos in the Flickr gallery here. Deb was also able to use the photos in the newsletter that got done last night. I wanted to get back early since there was a prediction for a snow storm, and I also wanted to go to a friend's after bar party.

When I stopped off at a rest stop, I noticed that I had a voice mail message from a guy I know, who was curious about a visit. Suffice to say that there was a bit of frolicking involved. ;)

However, when I went to the after bar party afterwards, someone noticed that I had my shirt on inside out. Oops! "I must have dressed rather hurriedly" was my quick excuse. (Note how I didn't mention how recently I had gotten dressed. Again.)

I think things are okay now. When I woke up this morning, I noticed that the house was chilly. I looked at the thermostat and it was 45 degrees! The furnace was silent (scary) and the space heater in the computer room was also out. This is NOT the day to be without heat.

However, when I unplugged something on the furnace and plugged it back in again, it came on. I also relit the gas-powered space heater in the computer room and it came on as well. I am guessing (okay, hoping) that whatever it was that caused this was some sort of fluke.) The temperature on the thermostat is now showing a comparatively balmy 58 degrees, so I think I will be okay.

Another end of the year task out of the way. I have an area at the Erie Gay News site for area GLBT history. Towards the end of the year, I go through the past articles and post what seems to be important or significant. (I figure that it is easier to do in chunks of a year.) Anywho, I think I have everything in there. We have some stuff going back to the 60' s or 70's.

I caught up on some geeky stuff. I got a call mid-evening from my friend Eric, who was having problems with his laptop. I stopped over at his place around 9 PM to pick it up for a look and took it into work. (Eric lives only a few blocks from work.) He seemed to have picked up a nasty bit of malware, but there are some hardware issues as well I ended up calling it a day at 3:30 in the AM, and ended up taking it over to my friend Dave, who does hardware. I hope that it turns out okay.

Sigh. I have been checking some weirdness (and feeling stupid and lazy for not finding it, but anxious when asking for help) with one of our software packages at work, and managed to finally found a rarely activated bug, but only an hour or so before going on vacation for the rest of the year. It is an incredibly bad idea to deploy new code before being away, so per another programmer, I just sent the affected customers an email to explain the situation. So, now I have something over my head to fret about. Yay.

I have had a few other experiences (one really disturbing) that are making me feel like a horrible, rude, bad, worthless person. NOT a welcome trend. I think I tend to have a hard time evaluating some situations, and there seems to be a raft of them hitting me just now. I feel like the Sultan of Self-Doubt. I talked with my friend Paula, who was very soothing and supportive. Thank the Goddess for good friends.

I just want to make up for everything that I seem to be screwing up lately.

Since I had an unfinished task (and just because I wanted to), I went to the open circle for Yule that the Covenant of Brighidshaven had at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Erie had. Out of all 8 rituals, Yule tends to be the most playful. It was a nice turnout, and great catching up with friends.

There were games to choose the lighter of the Yule log. For the first one, all the men stood in a circle, passing a lit candle, while the women stood a pace behind, trying to blow it out. I lasted a bit into the game but not too far. The last man holding the lit candle won.

For the second game, the man who won the first game basically played blind men's bluff while the other men kept the women in play. The last woman caught won the game. The blindfolded man frequently ended up grabbing at the other guys who were keeping the women enclosed.

So, I got blown (or rather the candle did) by a woman and had to tell a guy to stop feeling me up. All in all, a VERY odd evening. But we did conclude the circle with the traditional ending, so it was all good.

How surreal! I was driving back to work after lunch, and I went by 6th and Cranberry. There was a huge flock of birds that were scrounging for food. I am guessing that they were migrating. There were rather plain and slightly chubby. It was like a scene out of The Birds by Hitchcock.

Someone hand me a shoe to throw! What a completely arrogant and heartless statement. We have spent huge sums of money and lives going to war in Iraq and apparently brought about the thing that we were supposedly trying to prevent. And His Shrubness just says, "So what?" when this is pointed  out???

"So what?"
-- President Bush, when told by Martha Raddatz that al Qaeda is only in Iraq as a result of the American invasion.  Bush was trying to use al Qaeda's presence in the country as justification for the invasion and continuing occupation.

Quote of the Day
Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:10:39 GMT

Nifty! Okay, this isn't a policy or legislative change, but pretty cool that GLBT Americans finally get to be included with everyone else. The fact that there was a record number of bands applying shows that people are excited about incoming President Obama.

In one of the Millcreek Fourth of July Parades, the politically progressive contingent (which included GLBT representation) marched right after WCTL, a local Christian radio station. Sure, we might not normally agree on many issues, but they waved and smiled, and we were pleasant back. For a few hours, we can certainly all get along and celebrate being American together, as well as being ourselves.

Gay Musicians From Bay Area To Play Inauguration Parade

Saturday, December 13, 2008 – updated: 11:38 am PST December 14, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- For the first time in American history, a gay and lesbian band will be marching in a presidential inauguration.

Barack Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee has chosen the Lesbian and Gay Band Association, with members from across the country, to march in the inaugural parade in Washington on Jan. 20.

Twenty-six Bay Area musicians from the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Freedom Band and Cheer San Francisco will participate as members of the Lesbian and Gay Band Association, a national group tapped to march in the inaugural event.

“It means the Obama transition team views lesbian and gay men as part of America,” said Rice Majors, artistic director for the Lesbian and Gay Band Association. “We're a visible part of America.”

The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper that was the first to report the news, said that Bill Clinton allowed gay groups to perform their music on the sidewalk during his inauguration but not to march in the parade.

In related news. one other group of musicians from the Bay Area will also be playing in the parade: a middle school marching band.

Members of the Redwood City Middle School Marching Band were unable to discern their historical significance or how their band of 110 students managed to earn an invitation to the nation's capitol.

“I'm not quite sure why they chose us, but it's still pretty interesting that they did,” said Sanjeev Suresh, band percussionist.

Even Bennet Lopez, the district's music director, said she initially thought the invitation might have been a prank. Now she's convinced the Obama team realized the community represents one America. As the big day approaches, her focus is making sure her students are ready for miles of marching and an East Coast winter.

"The weather in D.C. can be nasty!," said Redwood flautist Paula Grave.

Members of both bands -- Redwood City Middle School and Lesbian and Gay Band Association -- are currently trying to raise funds to pay for the trip: the students are planning to hold benefit concerts and the adults are launching a Web site Sunday selling t-shirts.

There were a record number of applicants to march in this year's parade - nearly 1,400 - with only a few dozen being selected. During the last inaugural, in 2005, about 340 bands applied to march and 47 were selected.

Gay Musicians From Bay Area To Play Inauguration Parade - News Story - KTVU San Francisco

I had a wonderful night at the Holiday Social at the Latonia in Oil City. Everyone was very friendly and warm. I chatted with some folks and took some photos.

I sort of got turned around coming back, and ended up taking route 8 home, rather than I-79, but it all worked out.

Just hoping that we can get folks to help out here. Separate from this, we also collected food at the Erie Bloggers meetup on Tuesday night.

National Food Drive for Equality

Your help is needed! As a continuation of the Proposition 8 protest rallies held across the US, Join The Impact is organizing the National Food Drive for Equality. Here in Erie, we are collecting non-perishable items for the Second Harvest Food Bank of NW PA through December 20. You can read more about the national effort at http://jointheimpact.wetpaint.com/page/National+Food+Drive+for+Equality. Check the Erie page at Join the Impact's wiki here.

Basically, the idea is to show the greater community that LGBT people and their supporters are engaged and concerned about more than just issues focused on ourselves. So, by giving to the food drive, you help both the LGBT community, and the greater community as well! It's just a nice thing to do for the holiday season.

We are trying to collect everything by Saturday, December 20. We will be going to the food bank during the day on Monday, December 22. Anyone is welcome to join us. We are trying to show the size and strength of our community.

Please note that the Latonia Theatre, 1 E 1st St, Oil City PA will be collecting food at their Holiday Social on Saturday, December 13 at 8 PM, for a food pantry in Oil City. For more info, check here.

There are boxes labeled National Food Drive for Equality at the following locations:

Chicory Hill Herbs, 2516 1/2 Peach St, Erie PA
Craze Night Club, 1607 Raspberry St, Erie PA
Papa Joe's Pepperoni Cafe, 402 W 8th St, Erie PA
Zodiac Dinor, 2516 State St, Erie PA
Zone Dance Club, 133 W 18th St, Erie PA.

We hope to add more locations. Please support these businesses that are supporting our community and this very worthwhile effort!

National Food Drive for Equality

Hmm, another article in the paper indicated that the Crossroads Dinor might just be closing for over the holidays, as opposed to permanently.

Actually, when I was going to Edinboro University, I worked as a dishwasher at the Crossroads Dinor, and it was fairly common for them to close over the holidays. That was a few owners ago, so unsure.

It was sort of my first job, not counting having been a newspaper carrier for 7 years. I jokingly referred to myself as the most literate dishwasher there ever. I had just graduated with a BA in Psychology ("Yes, you are talking about egg stains on the plate. How does that make you feel?") and a minor in Philosophy, and was getting a BS in Computer Science. I remember that Homecoming at Edinboro University was particularly brutal.

My favorite exchange happened when the day manager came back to tell the cook to take Tom out of the oven. I looked quizzical, and she explained that she meant Tom Turkey. I countered by saying that Lewis Carroll had said that you should never eat anything you have been introduced to. She furrowed her brow and asked, "Lewis Carroll? Does he eat here?" Memo to self: references to 19th century authors whilst working at a minimum wage job are rarely going to come off well.

Crossroads Dinor closes suddenly

BY KEVIN CUNEO
kevin.cuneo@timesnews.com [more details]

Published: December 11. 2008 12:01AM

Zoom | Buy this photo

Edinboro residents are mourning the closing of Crossroads Dinor, which has been a downtown fixture at 101 Plum St. since 1929. It closed suddenly about a week ago, and local officials say they have been unable to reach Jim Sims, the former Edinboro University basketball star and coach, who purchased the restaurant in 2007. "Many of us feel lost without the diner," said Rene Allison Thayer, president of the Edinboro Business Association. "The building has been such an icon for so long that many of us are concerned about its future." ...

GoErie.com: Crossroads Dinor closes suddenly

I took yesterday off for the Day Without A Gay. I had a fair amount of vacation time to burn up before the end of the year anyway, so I worked on some projects, including the local efforts for the National Food Drive for Equality.

When I talked with my friend Paula, she referred to it as a "va-gay-tion day," which I thought was quite clever.

I didn't bother telling the folks at work any specifics. After having been in local media on and off for gay stuff for 16 1/2 years now, it didn't seem necessary.

When I came back into work today, I read my emails, which included stuff about a printer issue at a client. Dave the hardware tech had asked Jim or myself to take a look at it. Jim was tied up, and noted that I was out because it was "stay at home gay day." I found this inexplicably amusing. I am not sure, but I may possibly have run out of people to come out to. ;)

Heavens! it sounds like Rove is preparing to turn into an Ice Queen Demon Bitch Goddess from Hell Royale. And the histrionics are worthy of of a drag queen. If Karl Rove had good information about people that involved illegal activity, why didn't he bring it up to be dealt with appropriately before? Or does "not accepting" translate to "does not genuflect and kiss butt swiftly or passionately enough."

Karl, sweetie darling, if you are compiling a list of people who are unreceiving of George W Bush as President, you are going to have a VERY long list. (You have seen the historically low approval ratings, yes.) Feel free to put mine at the very top!

Rove vows to 'name names'

Posted: 12:21 PM ET

Rove says he will name his enemies in a new book.

(CNN) – Enemies of President Bush take heed: Karl Rove is set to name names.

The man widely credited with Bush's two presidential victories says his new book will include an accounting of those in Washington who never accepted the president as a legitimate commander-in-chief.

"I've got behind-the-scenes episodes that are going to show how unreceiving they were of this man as president of the United States," Rove told Cox News in an interview published Sunday. "I'm going to name names and show examples."

Rove signed a deal with publishing giant Simon & Schuster last year, reported be worth over $1.5 million.

In the wide-ranging interview, Rove also suggested the criticisms the president and his aides took were partly because they were not part of the Washington establishment.

"You'll notice there was outrage when it was thought that I was the person behind outing Valerie Plame. And then when it came out that it was the sainted [Deputy Secretary of State] Richard Armitage, there was no interest," Rove said. "I don't remember seeing anybody camped out on his doorstep like they were camped out on mine. [It's]because he was part of the acceptable culture of Washington, and I was not. I was one of those Texans who came up. He was one of those perpetual I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you'll-scratch-mine Washington leakers. "

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Rove vows to ‘name names’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

Just a reminder that the Erie Bloggers will be getting together this coming Tuesday, December 9 at 7 PM at Panera's Yorktown, 2501 W 12th St, Erie PA. In addition to socializing, we will also be collecting again for the Second Harvest Food Bank of NW PA. We received a Bread Box award for last year's collection.

Hope to see you there!

I saw this on Eden's blog, who in turn saw it elsewhere.

Put your music player on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results. The first line of the twenty-first song is the title.

Here is what I got:

Jesus bleibet meine freude

Now is the month of Maying
Well Did you ever have colcannon made with lovely pickled cream?
Mon coeur se recommande a vous
Sing we and chant it

Give 'em the old razzle dazzle
Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen
Chi passa per 'sta strada
Captain Jack was a young man when he went to sea

A lieta vita amor c'in vita
Now o now I needs must part
The sun contains a ray
Er hat sein volk getrost't

Now for the pirate's lair
Lift up your head
There is a peaceful solution
There is a peaceful solution

Now is the month of Maying
Once a jolly swagman camped by the billabong
It's no illusion
When Daphne from fair Phoebus did fly

 

**Okay, I have a few versions of the same song, and I really did get 2 different versions of Peaceful Solution back to back. I actually got those for a rally that Deb organized, and one of the lines was from a Marie Osmond song I downloaded for James.

Hmm, I count 4 languages represented (and Sing We and Chant It happens to to be an English remake of the earlier Italian A Lieta Vita.) Hmm, interesting that 3 of the 5 stanzas ended up beginning with the word Now, and the first stanza and last stanza begin with the same line.

Jeremy had this. (His was shaded blue.) Yeah. I know. 2 gay guys using a meme about rainbows. Quel surprise!

My friend Bob Martin has a new blog. Bob worked with my dad years ago, so I have probably known him for at least 30 years.

Check out Inside Bob's Mind!

Passing this along, and I also posted this at the Erie County Democratic Party web site.

Erie, PA – Congresswoman-elect Kathy Dahlkemper is now accepting military academy applications through December 15, 2008.

“As Congresswoman, I have the honor of recommending a select group of candidates to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point. To be eligible for such a nomination, interested applicants must be residents of Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, be

between the ages of 17 and 23, unmarried and have no dependents,” said Dahlkemper.

Due to the transition of offices and the competitiveness of the selection process to these academies Congresswoman-elect Dahlkemper is attempting to do everything possible to expedite the process for the candidates. By holding the interviews in December, it will allow Dahlkemper to submit the recommendations on January 6, 2009 once she is sworn in.

According to Dahlkemper, applicants are judged on a competitive basis, including the student’s SAT or ACT scores, class rank, grade point average, school records and letters of recommendation. A review panel of individuals from the district will interview candidates in late December; students will be contacted in advance of their interview with interview specifics.

Applications should be mailed to Congresswoman-elect Kathy Dahlkemper, PO Box 1045, Erie, PA 16512.

For more information, call (814) 456-0987.

Deb touched up the Project Postcard photos that James took last week. I am fairly pleased with how it went, and they have extended the project through Christmas.

Basically, folks should sign a postcard to the Obama transition team asking for support for repealing DOMA and also for supporting LGBT equal rights. Optionally, they are asking for folks to take a photo with their postcard and post it. There is full details about the project here.

In addition to the Flickr set, and the brief article on Erie Gay News linking to it, the Join the Impact site is also cycling through the photos that we also uploaded there, so Erie PA folks get to be on the front page!